ADRIFT FOR MONTH

Hokitika Guardian, 25 August 1926, Page 3

ADRIFT FOR MONTH

NEW GUINEA NATIVES’ VOYAGE. SYDNEY. Aug. 12. On the Burns, Philip steamer Marsina, which arrived from the Solomon Islands this week, there were seven strange passengers. They were New Guinea natives—five men and two women—who were, for a month adrift iii the northern Pacific Ocean in a small canoe. The natives had set out from ‘Woodlark Island, off the northeastern coast of New Guinea, to return to their village on Loughlin Island, a few miles away, when their canoe was caught by head winds and a strong current, and they were swept over 200 miles across the Pacific to the Solomon group.

That voyage wus an epic of the sea. How they managed to live for a month in tho small craft is a mystery, as their only food was a small quantity of meat and native vegetables. Water gave out after a few days, and the Papuans owe their lives to tho fact that it rained on several/ occasions, and they were able to catch i.i little in the sails. The terrible suffering proved too much lor one old man, who died shortly alter being landed at Gi/o. It was a. teat of endurance probably without parallel, considering tho little food they had to sustain them. Few white men would have come through the ordeal alive. One of the older men took clrirgc, and rationed' tho food. Day alter day the canoe was in the grip of the current, and they coi'ild do nothing but hope that they would ho- carried to some island. Their frightful experience will never he known, for all the natives would say was that they had “plenty had lime.”

Eventually the Papuans landed at Gel la Gella, a sma ll Solomon village, about 39 miles east of the settlement of Gizo. They beached the canoe only because they knew that certain death from starvation awaited them if they kept at sea. The Papuans were in deadly fear of being killed by the Gella Gella natives, but they realised that they could travel no longer. But the natives of Gella Gella proved iiiendlt. and they looked after the Papuans until they were rescued by an island schooner and taken on to Gizo. The authorities at that port handed them over to Captain Williams, of the Marsinn. Now they are waiting in Sydney’s cold southern clime until the Marsina takes them hack to New Guinea. Surely their native relations in the north will welcome them ns travellers "ho have eome hack from death?